For the last two years, the opposition Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh has been targeting the police department in general and Director General of Police Gautam Sawang in particular for the alleged witch-hunt of its leaders.
Many times, the TDP leaders made wild allegations against the police, accusing them of behaving like YSRC party workers.
The TDP leaders alleged many times that the police were foisting false cases against them, resorting to illegal arrests and even remaining silent when the YSRC leaders were killing the TDP workers.
There were many instances of the police officers’ association issuing statements condemning the TDP allegations against the police and the DGP.
The police officials also filed defamation cases against the TDP leaders; yet, they continue to make the allegations.
But on Friday, the TDP leaders have started sudden love towards the police. Reason: they failed to prevent the massive rally by the AP government employees and teachers in Vijayawada on the pay revision issue and the chief minister reportedly expressed his dissatisfaction over the police inaction.
TDP legislator Anagani Satya Prasad found fault with the chief minister for attributing the employees' success to the 'failure' of the police.
He said the employees came to the protest dharna in huge numbers in an indication of their outpouring of anger and anguish against the YCP betrayal.
“How can the government pass on the blame to the police instead of correcting its mistakes? Does the Jagan government have no respect for the police who had risked their lives to save the lives of the Coronavirus patients during the height of the pandemic?” he asked.
The TDP leader said the government was spreading rumours about giving weekly off to the police but in fact, such a facility was not being implemented.
He recalled how the YSRC regime had done severe injustice by reducing the salaries of the police after making lots of promises.
“The police maintained utmost restraint during Thursday's dharna programme of the employees' associations,” he said and lauded the police for preventing any untoward incident by maintaining law and order. If there was any small lapse, there would have been serious consequences, he said.